{"id":1105,"date":"2009-07-15T08:51:43","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T08:51:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2011-01-15T13:12:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-15T00:12:38","slug":"not-a-great-time-to-be-a-chap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"Not a great time to be a chap"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news and current affairs are, as we all know, systems designed to shout the most abrasive and divisive things to generate interest. Lately I’ve been trying to steer clear of NZ news because of the omnipresent coverage of Clayton Weatherston. This man is now the most hated man in the country, and I imagine he will hold that title for a long time to come. He is on trial for murdering his girlfriend, a much younger girl who was his student. The crime was appallingly violent. He is claiming a defence of provocation.
\nHis claims are nonsensical, but there might be an effective legal strategy behind this defence<\/a>. Most of all it bothers me that the victim’s family and friends are forced to endure this prolonged character assault as it is amplified through the media. (As Bartok noted, If they didn’t allow TV cameras in the courtroom, would it be getting nearly as much play?<\/a>) I hate that our news coverage is so dominated by this man and his justifications for an act of the most extreme violence against a young girl. Never mind that he is hated, and none of his words are believed, and that he is certain to be found guilty; the mere fact that we have given him this national platform and that we attend to his words demeans us all. (See also NotKate’s take<\/a>.)
\nAlso we had in the last few days the woman who was in an abusive relationship with an NZ TV celeb telling her side of the story. Russell Brown has a good summary of why it matters<\/a>. Remember, also, that this violent celeb has maintained a lot of public support throughout “his” ordeal.
\nAnd finally, the British midwife who thinks the pain of childbirth is important for parent\/child bonding. Of course, this is a chap talking about what’s good for the womens. Jonny Nexus notes the appropriate response<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news and current affairs are, as we all know, systems designed to shout the most abrasive and divisive things to generate interest. Lately I’ve been trying to steer clear of NZ news because of the omnipresent coverage of Clayton Weatherston. This man is now the most hated man in the country, and I imagine … Continue reading Not a great time to be a chap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mediawatch"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-hP","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2212,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}